Deze samenvatting is gebaseerd op het studiejaar 2013-2014.

Chapter A: Introduction to Organizational Behavior

Organizational behavior (OB); The study field of how individuals, people, groups and structure behave and act in organizations.

The study field is individuals, groups of people and the structure of the people and groups within the organization. The purpose of OB is to obtain information and knowledge about the behavior of an organization so they can work more efficient and effective.

OB’s core themes:

Motivation

Leader behavior and power

Interpersonal communication

Group structure and process

Personality, emotions and values

Attitude development and perception

Change processes

Conflict and negotiation

Work design

Systematic study: Study that looks at relationships, and let’s scientific evidence helps us find causes, effects and conclusions.

Evidence based management (EBM): Management that uses scientific evidence to make decisions.

OB; Behavioral disciplines:

(Social) Psychology: Micro level

Sociology and anthropology: Macro level

Psychology: A study of the behavior of humans.

Social psychology: How people focus on each other and influence each other in a social way.

Sociology: The study of how people react and what their relations are with culture, environment and organizations.

Anthropology: The study of people and their activities in groups, cultures and different countries.

Contingency variables: Variables that lead to each other, but with special conditions. ‘One’ leads to ‘two’ under the condition that ‘three’.

Workforce diversity: Differences and similarities of people whitin an organization. This could be in terms of cultural background, sex, race, religion, etc. This differences should be taking into account to adapt to people in organizations.

Globalization: Focuses on the differences of people in different countries.

Service job: The job in which an organization’s employee comes in direct contact with the customer.

State of flux: The fluctuation of the organization’s divisions, businesses and operations. Organizations can reorganize or sell their divisions and businesses to stay healthy. The replacement of workers with temporary employees is part of this fluctiation.

Networked organizations: An organization that is connected with other organizations and can work together, even though there is a time zone in between them.

Three levels of analysis: Individual, group and organization.

Where group ≠ Σ individuals

And organization ≠ Σ groups

Chapter B: Moods, Emotions, and Organizational behavior

Affect: A pattern of behavior that is observable and expressed by feelings people obtain. Can be positive or negative; A mood that consist of positive/negative emotions.

Emotions: An inner perception or intense feelings that is directed at someone or something in a spontaneous way or in a given situation.

Moods: A state of emotion. Has a positive or negative effect and can last much longer than an emotion.

Emotions: Anger, fear, sadness, happiness, disgust, surprise (6 most used)

Positive: Express an inner perception or feeling that is favorable in a given situation

Negative: A no favorable feeling

Positivity offset: When you don’t get any emotional input of someone, then most individuals see this as a mildly positive mood. 

Factors that have effect on emotions and moods

Personality: The way a certain person reacts to an emotion can be different from the reaction of others due to personality.

Day of the week and the time of the day

Weather: Illusory correlation (when someone links two random events to each other that in reality do not have any connection)

Stress

Social activities

Sleep

Exercise

Age

Gender

Emotional labor: How an employee expresses the emotions that the organization desires during work transactions in which he or she needs to be interpersonal.

Emotional dissonance: The dissonance that an employee has when he needs to fake an emotion for the sake of the organization.

Felt versus displayed emotions:

Felt: The emotions that someone is actually experiencing

Displayed: The emotions that an organization wants to see. This emotion is learned and the organization considers this emotion necessary in a given job.

Surface acting: The hiding of a person’s inner feelings and the waiving of emotional expressions in an organization in a response to the displayed rules.

 à Displayed emotions

Deep acting: The result of surface acting in which the inner feeling changes to the feeling that the organization desires. The organizationally owned interest and identity of the worker immerses into his own goals and values.

à Felt emotions

Emotional intelligence (EI): A person’s competence to (1) be assertive, (2) see the emotions that other persons have, and (3) control these emotions, cues and information. The strengths of EI are that it can predict criteria towards job performance and it is biologically based. The weaknesses that EI has are that it is vague and it is not easy to measure. This makes it unreliable.

The understandings of moods and emotions have a positive effect on:

The selection process à EI should be considered as a factor in the hiring process

Decision-making à Low level of EI ensures slow information processing and weighing all options, while high level of EI uses heuristics and use of thumb.

Creativity

Motivation à Feedback influences mood and motivation

Leadership à Increases effectiveness

Interpersonal conflict

Negotiation and customer service

Job attitude and deviant workplace behavior

Chapter C: Personality Traits and Work Values

Personality: The way that the combination of emotions, attitudes and behavior lets an individual respond to and interact with other individuals.

Heredity: The transmission of properties from parent or ancestors to descendants. The personality of an individual is captured in the modular structure of the genes, which are located in the DNA of an individual.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI): Is a personality test which consist of 100 questions that show how people feel or (re)act in a certain situation based on four dimensions:

Extravert (E) vs Introvert (I)

Sensing (S) vs Intuitive (N)

Thinking (T) vs Feeling (F)

Judging (J) vs Perceiving (P)

Big Five personality traits: Using the Big Five to describe a person’s personality

Five Factor Model:

Extraversion: The degree to which someone is comfortable in relationships.

Introvert vs extravert

Agreeableness: The degree to which someone shows agreeableness, warmth and symphaty

Conscientiousness: The degree to which someone is reliable

Emotional stability: The stability of someone’s emotions is a measure of withstanding stress.

Openness to experience: The degree to which someone is open to experience new things and new interests

Core self-evaluation: The way you think about yourself, which can be positive or negative. Has a relation to job satisfaction.

Machiavellianism: The tension to mislead someone in order to create a power advantage. Machiavellianism do whatever it takes to get a higher power status.

High machs:

Rather interact face to face with others in stead of indirectly

Are good in improvising and thus desire a situation which has a minimal number of rules and regulations

Tend to distract low machs by telling emotional details that are irrelevant to win

Narcissism: A person with self-confidence so high that he is able to fall in love with himself. Key words are arrogance, self-importance, etc.

Self-monitoring: The ability of an individual to control his expressions and behavior in situations with external factors.

Risk-taking: The risk that people take in jobs and on the work floor. Influenced by the work self and the work environment.

Type A personality: Persons who always, chronic, want to achieve more in less time and are willing to take actions against the adverting effects of others. They want to do much more things than they can in very little time.

Type B personality: Persons who are not hurried by time and want to do an increasing number of thing or increasing set of events in time that is decreasing. They want to do too many things in too little time.

Proactive personality: A person, who has an active attitude towards opportunities, shows initiative and stick to meaningful changes until they happen.

Values: The assessment someone gives to a person, situation or object. Contains things like ‘right and wrong’.

Content attribute: What is the importance of the value?

Intensity attribute: The intensity of a value which attributes to the value system of someone

Rokeach survey: A value classification system that contains terminal and instrumental values, each containing 18 individual value items.

Terminal values: The end-state that a person would like to have achieved before he dies.

Instrumental values: The mode of behavior that is preferable for the terminal values to be achieved.

Person-jobfit theory: Six personality types that indicates how a person fits his or her job.

Realistic

Investigative

Social

Conventional

Enterprising

Artistic

Key points to person-fit model:

People have intrinsic differences

Not all the jobs are the same

People who have jobs that fit their personality are likely to be more satisfied and are less likely to resign then people who have jobs that are incongruent with their personality

Person-organization fit theory: People choose organizations based on values and are much more attracted to organizations that match their values. If an organization is does not fit those values, people are likely to leave them.

Hofstede’s Framework for assessing cultures:

Power distance: Do people in a country accept that not all the power in an organization is distributed equally?

Individualism vs collectivism

Masculinity vs feminity: Does women have the same roles as men?

Uncertain avoidance: Do people in a country prefer structured or unstructured situations? The use of laws and controls can reduce uncertain avoidance.

Longterm vs shortterm orientation

Chapter D: Motivation II: Applied Concepts

Job characteristics model (JCM): Any job can be described in five job dimensions:

Skill variety: The variety of skills that a job contains in which the worker can use his talent and personal skills

Task identity: The completeness of a job, so the degree to which you make a whole product or just a part of it

Task significance: The impact the job has on the lives of other people. A surgeon has a major impact, while the cafeteria worker has not

Autonomy: The freedom and independence that the job gives the worker

Feedback: The degree of feedback that the employee gets when he is done with his task. Making and testing an mp3 player gives high feedback, making a steering wheel gives low feedback

Job rotation: Employees shift task with each other to avoid boredom and increase motivation. It gives employees the feeling that they really contribute something to the organization, because of the skills they need for all the different tasks.

Job enrichment: The degree of enrichment the job is for the employee in terms of planning control, execution and work evaluation.

Combining task (skill variety, task identity)

Form natural work units: By letting employees form natural work units, they create a meaningful whole and identify themselves with that. (task identity, task significance)

Establish client relationships: Establish the relationship between the clients and the employees. (skill variety, autonomy, feedback)

Expand jobs vertically: By giving employees more management tasks they gain more responsibility and control. (autonomy)

Open feedback channels (feedback)

These actions and their core dimensions are shown in Exhibit 7.2

Method of job enrichment:

Let stories of customers that benefited from the organization products enrich in the work of the employees.

Let employees help each other by sharing knowledge. This contributes to the employees’ motivation and they get a pro-active attitude towards the organization.

Flextime: Employees can organize en decide at which time they work, as long as they make enough hours during the week.

Job sharing: Two or more persons can divide the workload, payment, bonuses, etc, of a 40-hours workweek.

Telecommuting: A workweek in which an employee can work at least 2 days at home. There is a linkage between home and the office by a computer or the internet.

Employee involvement: The use of employee’s ideas, feedback and other input in the organizations process to increase their commitment to the organization.

Payment

What to pay?

Internal equity: The value that the job has for the organization

External equity: The value the world has for that

How to pay?

Variable pay program: Pay is portionately based on a measure of performance, speed, quality etc.

Piece-rate pay: A fixed sum for each product or unit that is completed

Merit-based pay: Pay is based on performance

Bonuses

Skill-based pay: Pay is based on the number of skills a employee has or the amount of jobs they can do

Profit sharing plans: The profit an organization has made determines the amount of pay. Profit can be cashed out as money or for example as stock options

Gain sharing: Calculations based on group productivity determines pay. Even when a company is not making profit, the employees can get bonuses.

Employee stock ownership plans (ESOP): Bonuses in terms of stock in the organization. This increases job satisfaction and motivates the employees because they are ‘owner’ of the organization.

Some employees can choose flexible benefits, by which they can decide which pay compensation suits them best.

Reward:

Intrinsic: Compliments, positive feedback, higher rank in hierarchy, etc

Extrinsic: Pay rise, bonuses, etc

Chapter E: Groups

Group:

Formal: A group that has a formal, organizational structure, e.g. a work assignment group

Informal: A group that is not defined by the organization. Social contact.

Command group: A hierarchy in which people carry out orders from the management, or top. They need to report to the management.

Task group: A temporary group of members that need to fulfill the same task or take part in an action.

Friends group: Group that can be based on common age or ethnic heritage etc.

Five-stage model of group development: Framework in understanding the development of groups

Forming: The group is not ready made and there are no roles with regard to leadership and other structural components.
Forming stage is done when members identify themselves with the group.

Storming: The existence of the group is accepted, but there is still no clear view of who is going to lead the group and what its structure is. There arises a conflict in the group.
Completed when the conflict is almost over and made an agreement about the hierarchy of leadership.

Norming: Group cohesiveness makes the group closer and relationships between members start to exist. The group’s identity becomes clearer.
Norming is completed when the structure in the group is clear and the expectations of the group are set. Members know what behavior is accepted in the group.

Performing: The group is now fully accepted and the structure is completely defined. The group is interacting with each other and the group energy is high.

Adjourning: The group is getting ready to separate.

Roles: A behavior that is expected in a given situation and has special patterns.

Role perception: How we think that we should act in a given situation

Role expectation: How others think we should act in a given

Role conflict: When there are two roles that are desirable and they don’t fit each other. 

Norms: Beliefs about the behavior of people in certain situations. How they should and should not behave.

Performance norms: The workload you need to take, what output level is desired, etc.

Appearance norms: Norms about how you should appear in a given situation. A gala has another dress code than a job interview.

Social arrangements norms: Norms about friendship forming, the reaction to a given social situation like funeral and birth, etc.

Resource allocation norms: Arrangements of overtime work, assignment of projects, new equipment, etc.

Hawtorne studies: An employee is likely to maximize behavior or output in response to being investigated. He will feel special because he is part of an experiment.

Conformity: Degree of conformity and belonging

Solomon Asch studies: A study in which a group is faced with a question with an easy answer. In the group is one member who will say the wrong answer on purpose so the group conformity can be studied. When the group is following the wrong answer, though they know the wright answer, there is a high conformity in the group.

Deviant workplace behavior: Voluntary behavior that harms norms and values of an organization and is this a threat to the organization and his members. Backstabbing, employee silence, cyber loafing, etc.

Status: The position someone has in the society or in a group.

Size:

Large groups have many members so there are many members that can gain input. This results in diverse input.

A small group has not so much input and so they are better in do something with that input and be more productive.

Research has shown that groups of 7 the most effective are in taking action and gaining input.

Social loafing: People in groups are inclined to spend less effort in the work than they could have done when they worked alone. The productivity from the whole group is not equal to the sum of the productivity of the different group members.

Try to minimize social loafing in groups by:

Give the group a goal, so they have a goal to strive to

Make the group members competitive in the group

Let the evaluation from a group member be done through another group member

Only select group members that want to be productive, motivated and function best when they work in groups

Give individual rewards

Cohesiveness: When the individuals feel a bond with each other and want to stay in the group.

How to motivate cohesiveness;

• Small groups
• Let the group goals be provocative and motivate the group members to join the group
• Let members spend a lot of time together so they can get bonds with each other
• Let membership be special and make the groups status high, so attending and leaving the group will be hard.
• Let the group compete with other groups
• Give group rewards
• Isolate the group from other groups, physically

Group decision making:

Strengths: Much variety in standpoints, information and knowledge and a solution that is quicker and easier accepted

Weaknesses: Groups have leaders that can dominate the decision, the group can has struggles to come to consensus

Groupthink: Groups strive to harmony and conformity within the group, this results in situations where not all evaluations are judged critically and not all ideas are discussed.

Group shift: People take greater risks when they act in a group, because the shared risk is lower than the individual risk.

Techniques that can be used for decision making:

Brainstorming

Nominal group technique: People in a group first think about ideas and then present them, whereby the other members silently and independently rank-order the ideas

Interacting groups: A group that communicates face to face with verbal and nonverbal expressions.

Chapter F: Leadership

Leadership: Organizing and influencing a group to achieve of a common goal.

Non-sanctioned: Leaders that can influence groups though they are not formal appointed as leaders.
 

Trait theories of leadership: Using the Big Five to identify and order the traits of leadership. Characteristics of people can forecast leadership and so the Big Five can be used as a way to predict leadership. But, someone with the desired leader characteristics can theoretically be a good leader, but that doesn’t mean that he is in practice.

Behavioral theories of leadership: People can be trained to become leaders

Initiating structure: When a leader defines and structures his role as leader and the role that the employees have. The structured can include the behavior towards work organization, the relationships with the employees and the goals that the leader needs to accomplish.

Consideration: The leader needs to gain the trust and the respect of the employees and needs to deal with feelings they have. It is necessary that the leader helps employees with problems, which can be personal, all employees must be treated equally, etc.
 

Fieldler contingency model: The leader needs to find the perfect balance between his leadership style and the degree of control he has in a given situation.

Least preferred co-worker (LPC) questionnaire: To identify the leadership style a person has, Fieldler thinks that it is necessary to measure the degree of orientation a leader has, task or relationship.
The questionnaire is a rating method - a scale from 1-8 for each of 16 sets of adjectives - to gain insight of the leader is task or relationship oriented. He is asked to think of the employee he least preferred and to rate that person.

Fieldler considers a leader as relationship oriented when the LPC is high, and task oriented when the LPC is low.

Fieldler then evaluates the leadership of the leader in terms of three variables, the relations of the leader and member, tasks and the power the leader has on salary, promotions, etc. These three variables have impact on the control of the leader.

Leader-member exchange theory (LMX): Due to time pressure, leaders will always have a small group that they favor. They get a more special relationship with them, than with the other employees.

Charismatic leadership: The leadership based on charisma. The followers of this leadership are impressed by the heroic leadership style of the leaders. The characteristics of this leadership are shown in exhibit 11.3.

The process to become a charismatic leader, three steps;

1. Get charisma. Charisma can not be learned, but if one has an optimistic view, is enthusiast and communicates with his body in stead of only words, then he can come a long way
2. Inspire others
3. Play on the emotions of potential followers
    

But how do charismatic leaders actually involve followers?

They have a vision. They link the present to a better future and set goals accordingly

They implement the vision and make sure that they make people believe they can attain these visions. This ensures self-confident and self-esteem.

They let the followers imitate. They set values and norms so the followers can identify themselves with the leader.

Encourage the vision and convince people of the vision by emotions.

Transactional leaders: Leadership based on tasks and roles. Clear tasks and roles will inspire the people to follow the leader. Characteristics of transactional leadership are shown in exhibit 11.4.

Transformational leader: Followers can be inspired when they see that the leader self has good intentions for the organization. The 4 I’s are shown in exhibit 11.4

Mediocore leader: When you do have transactional leadership qualities, but don’t have transformational leadership qualities. Transactional leadership continues on the transformational leadership.

Full rage of leadership model is shown in Exhibit 11.5

Authentic leader: Leaders that base successful leadership on their believes, their values and ethics. They gain trust.

Socialized charismatic leadership: Leadership that is based on the values of others, on conducting ethical. They try to convey the values of the followers with their own values in mind. Like the Dutch government.

Trust: When you have positive expectations about another and are willing to take risk and disadvantage. With trust in organizations it is easier to gain information and it makes groups more functional and productive.
 

Attribution theory of leadership: It is not the status leadership that makes a person a leader. It is important that a leader focuses on the outcomes and goals instead of being the best leader.

Identification-based trust: Trust that is based on the field of identification with others. If your wants and needs are the same as that of another, it is likely that you identify yourself with him and trust him because you trust yourself and your own needs and wants.